"War victim" just does not have the same political advantage.

And how many of these wars are about stopping war ?

And going after military targets generally, I would presume. The people at Guantanamo were planning to kill civilians in terrorist attacks.

McCain was involved in the bombing of a country we were not at war with, a bombing campaign that was directed at densely populated cities and that incurred many civilian casualties.

you can argue that was wrong. But it doesn't mean he was a terrorist. Some of the people in Gitmo may have turned out not to be. At least though it was somehow thought they were. I don't think we should have had Gitmo and wouldn't defend it, but real terrorists are worse than someone doing something for a military.

You may want to think it's the same, but you won't find many takers. We didn't commit genocide. No one has been tried in international tribunals for Vietnam. It may have been a mistake. I'd have been against it if old enough. But it was a war. Not every person in a war is equivalent to a Nazi soldier. There are gradations. It's all bad. But some of it is worse.

surrender. The fact that we got away with vietnam, with iraq, with the torture and abuse after 9-11, and with many other equally repulsive adventures in our post WWII empire period doesn't change the fact that we committed war crimes. Getting away with murder does not mean you aren't a murderer.

The war itself may have been a bad idea. But not everyone in a war commits war crimes.

our chemical warfare was a war crime.

How many Vietnamese died? More than a million which is verging on a type of genocide in my book. What happened in Cambodia is laid at our feet.

Sorry but I think you'd be in the minority if you didn't think we've committed war crimes (especially in Vietnam)

for war crimes?

No, with murder and tried in the military system. See wikipedia.

My Lai is the only one mentioned for Vietnam. Yet there was no international tribunal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes#Vietnam_War

We are not the Nazis. They committed far more and serious war crimes on one 5 year period than the US could even shake a stick at.

There is no need to exaggerate. If something is bad, it is still bad even if it can't be characterized with the worst possible term. You can still condemn it. You can condemn the VN war and Calley all day even if it is not a "war crime."

Because that is the end result of extending your "logic" to the end. If McCain is a war criminal for appointing the orders of those above him in the chain of command, which reaches to POTUS, then both Kennedy & LBJ are even more guilty of being a war criminal then McCain is since they are the ones who ordered the US military into Vietnam.

What about the members of Congress who voted to fund the Vietnam War? Are they war criminals as well?

And yes I think he ought to have answered that question asked of him so many times.

Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?

It was a legitimate question then, and remains a legitimate question.

and it just doesn't fly. I am as anti-war as the next DUer. But that does not mean that I can't admit that there were no war crimes in a war I opposed fighting. People do bad things, but some seem to have to make it the worst possible thing or it's not bad at all. The Nazis were worse than we've ever been. They did commit war crimes.

Wars of aggression are war crimes.
Torturing people is a war crime.

Blowing up villages and calling the victims collateral damage is bullshit. You should be ashamed of that defense.

lifetime if demoralizing is a war crime.

The fact that you are exaggerating and engaging in strawmen right and left should tell you that your position is weak and unsupportable.

But I'm guessing you are one of the youngins who didn't live through that war and got all your information from the post war bullshit machine.

those events?

Dude, this is the age of the internet. There are about a billion different takes on the Vietnam war out there. The accusation you just made is completely silly.

As far as blowing up the villages to demoralize the survivors, since we are talking about John McCain here, do you have evidence that he ever did that?

it is not based on our emotions about it.

Here is a list of people convicted: maybe their cases will tell what it is that actually qualifies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_convicted_war_criminals

Crimes against peace, war-crimes and crimes against humanity.

War-crimes was only one of the three.

The US most certainly comitted crimes against peace in Iraq.

people. The soldiers in the 2003-... Iraq war and Vietnam would not be charged with crimes against peace. I covered that in my #36 below.

The charge "crimes against peace" was brought against the leadership.

Historically "crimes against peace" is not something a common soldier can be guilty of. That doesn't mean the Iraq war wasn't such a crime. The Bush regime most certainly was guilty of "crimes against peace".

Iraq did not complain to any International Tribunal.

The term "crimes against peace" would have some legal meaning.

War crimes do not equate with simply being at war.

It is defending the Iraq War to indicate that a legal term might not be so simple and might have a legal definition?

Here is some real information about what might constitute a war crime:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1420133.stm

It's not a crime merely to be at war. It has to be more than that. I can be against the Iraq War and realize that.

That means, using your own words and definitions, that President Obama is a war criminal. Or do the civilians that died as a result of drone strikes and aircraft strikes that haven taken place while he is in office not count?

The folks who drew up and argued the rules of war, the Geneva conventions, etc., were not stupid. They recognized it is virtually impossible to have any major land battle, let alone campaign or war, without a lot of civilian casualties.

If you are going to say that a civilian casualty means a war crime has been committed, you might as well say all war is a crime and leave it at that.

The rule is pretty simple and you can look it up at the UN website to see language very similar what I am about to write, civilian injuries and deaths rise to the level of war crime when those injuries and deaths are wildly out of proportion to the military target/objective in the battle/air strike.

targets are supposedly nearby is a war crime.

Legally I doubt the drone strikes or air strikes would qualify as a war crime and the likelihood of any US President past or present of facing a war crime trial is zero.

Why hasn't the US been brought before a tribunal for Hiroshima?

Why was Calley tried only by the US?

I am thinking it takes much more than killing the civilians of the enemy to be classified as a war crime.

People are throwing that term around too easily. Any going to war is a war crime. Emotionally satisfying, but probably not the view of international tribunals.

as I noted in #36 below.

And Cambodia and Laos.

The My Lai massacre, Agent Orange, the bombing and burning of villages....

They used the defense you pointed out, but that is not why they were hung.

On Mon Jul 20, 2015, 10:36 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

McCain was in the military of his country fighting a war it was engaging in
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6989020

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

"The people at Guantanamo were planning to kill civilians in terrorist attacks." - This is a well-known right-wing lie. Spreading false talking points of the far right.


You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Mon Jul 20, 2015, 10:44 AM, and the Jury voted 2-5 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
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Explanation: Is this a joke?
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Please do not perpetuate right wing talking points on DU. They are generally bigoted talking points. Not something that should be cluttering up DU.
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some people take things so literally they can't see the context. I meant obviously that was the idea behind it which was different from what McCain did.

We committed lots of war crimes in vietnam, the bombing campaign was one of them.

But artillery and ground troops killing are ok?

Our air war against North Vietnam amounted to a war of aggression, as did our similar efforts in Cambodia. We had the fig leaf of supporting the nominal government of south vietnam and laos to cover our military operations in the south, however as you are certainly aware, we managed to commit many war crimes there as well, most of which were never investigated or prosecuted. Consider Laos - we dropped an incredible number of bombs on that country, so much so that people continue to die there - at the rate of over 100/year from our bombing campaign. Our war efforts in the region were aimed primarily at the people of the region, at civilians, in an effort to terrorize the population into submission. From the collapse of the French colonial regime in 1954 to the fall of Saigon in 1975 we killed somewhere between 500,000 and 2,000,000 civilians in that failed effort.

So you think WWII and Korea pilots are war criminals too?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki for example. Deliberate bombing of civilians is an atrocity and war crime. Not all of our actions were criminal and obviously Germany and Japan were the aggressors. Participation was not in itself a war crime.

Given that North Korea was the aggressor and that our involvement was sanctioned by the United Nations I'll take a pass on the air war by itself being a war crime. We did commit at least one major atrocity on the ground that has been extensively documented. Nobody was ever prosecuted. No Gun Ri for example.

Both were Communist countries that wanted one united government, and by force attacked first. No?

It is terrible but was not punished as a war crime. They tried the Nazis at Nuremberg. Not the U.S.

https://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule156

There is some information. It is not merely because we are horrified. And a lot of Americans still justify Hiroshima, etc. We had to defeat Japan. By your standard Japan was certainly guilty of war crimes itself.

to various UN agencies after shock and awe and it prompted the UN to issue a finding that shock and awe was not a war crime. For a bombing campaign or a particular military action to be a war crime, the UN said that the military objectives would have to be completely out of proportion to the civilian casualties and shock and awe did not fit that description.

Now if you said that our engaging in military action against Vietnam at all is the war crime of an unprovoked war of aggression, I would see some merit to that opinion. But the consequences for that at Nuremberg were only aimed at the remaining political leadership and perhaps the Nazi equivalent of the military chiefs of staff, not line officers or below.

So bringing war crimes into the discussion with regards to McCain doesn't work.

I have nothing but respect for John McCain's war service. In fact, it's the ONLY aspect of his life I find worthy of any sort of respect.

Bash his political career all you want. He certainly deserves it. But leave his military service the hell alone.

Not liking some of the answers you're getting in your little thread? Boo-hoo.

I suppose different people have different opinions on what a "hero" is, and who they deem "heroic."

I'm an old man. I no longer have any heroes. But they are women and men who I have great respect for.

Those who I look up to are those that I recognize as spiritually advanced individuals.

Being able to recognize that different people can venerate different things and have different heroes requires a maturity that isn't always attained by ordinary nationalists.

"In mid-1968, John S. McCain Jr. (his father) was named commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater, and the North Vietnamese offered McCain early release[44] because they wanted to appear merciful for propaganda purposes,[45] and also to show other POWs that elite prisoners were willing to be treated preferentially.[44] McCain turned down the offer; he would only accept repatriation if every man taken in before him was released as well. Such early release was prohibited by the POW's interpretation of the military Code of Conduct: To prevent the enemy from using prisoners for propaganda, officers were to agree to be released in the order in which they were captured"

He could have gotten out, but stayed out of a sense of fairness for the men captured before him. He demanded to be treated the same as any other prisoner, despite his famous father.

If that isn't heroism, I don't know what is.

Say what you will about his political career, but that move too major guts. I don't think 99% of the people on DU (myself included) would take such a principled stand when faced with literal torture.

but after years of torture, being offered to get out would have been a strong temptation.

Then again, the code of conduct, which is drilled into everyone who joins the military is pretty explicit about keeping faith with your fellow prisoners. I probably would have stayed, but that doesnt make what McCain did less heroic.

Of the 779 prisoners, exactly 8 were convicted in military tribunals, 6 of those took plea deals to get out of the torture facility. One person is being held for trial in the federal court system. The remaining 770 prisoners, 9 of whom died while being tortured, were never charged with any crime, primarily because there is no evidence that any of them committed any crimes. 116 are still being held, 51 of whom not only have not been charged with any crimes, they have been cleared of any suspicion.

How are these people not heroes if McCain is a hero?

If they were indeed planning attacks to get back at America, or seen as defending Islam.

I don't think the Vietnamese who held McCain would have given him a trial of any kind.

nor have the ones that have been held been fair trials, so so far the US and the Vietnamese are equal. As for planning attacks, the poster you replied to told you explicitly that of the large majority, in fact almost all of those held at Guantanamo, there's no evidence that they ever planned to attack America or American soldiers before their unlawful rendition to and incarceration at Guantanamo.

Of course, I wouldn't blame them if they want to attack Americans after their incarceration - I doubt I would be able to forgive anyone who held me and tortured me if I was innocent, and I would most certainly actively work against anyone who did.

And some of them may not be innocent, let's stop pretending they are all as innocent as the driven snow. Even Bush had no reason to go out of his way to lock up random innocents there. At least there was some standard by which they were sent there. I don't agree with Bush doing that. But they aren't heroes for being imprisoned there.

And they don't have any right to attack other innocent people when they get out.

Just being a prisoner doesn't make you a war hero. It is the fact he put his fellow service member before himself in the name of fairness that does it.

The people you are talking about are victims of a horrible system, but they aren't war heroes. There is a difference.

It's too complex a concept to lay out in black and white terms. And people can do heroic acts for all the wrong reasons.

Too many of the people in gitmo were not doing anything wrong or heroic, but still ended up there.

He admitted on live television (60 Minutes) that he bombed innocent women and children in Vietnam. That's not a hero.

any more than putting on the uniform makes you a hero despite what US propaganda has preached for the last 20 or so years.

I'd imagine nations and cultures choose their own heroes, rather than pretending who the heroes of other nations and cultures should be on the pretext of a dramatically nescient question.

One's hero is another person's villain.

Things are never cut and dry.

I think those in Guantanamo, some of them might have been put in there by mistake. However, since they've been in there, the hate that has accumulated in them by now makes them extremely dangerous.

That, is Bush's fault, he is a major villain in many many people's eyes, while he is still a hero to some who even equate him to Leonidas. Which to me is absolutely ludicrous, but there are some who equated the movie 300 with Bush, and I thought that was completely idiotic.

Saying that, well, for me:

1 - McCain served in a war. Just or unjust, it was where his country sent him. He did his duty, and that is to be commended(performing an act of civil disobedience can also be commended, particularly if they go through the consequences of such an act.. i.e. going to jail and so forth). Trump, Nugent, Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh and many others skipped out. They are cowards that should have no say in this.

2 - Surviving through torture, is such an ordeal that does not make one a hero, but a victim. It is what one does after it that is what should be noted. McCain decided to go in to another type of Public Service. Even if I don't agree with him in many ways, I could still consider his actions as trying to help society, even if he is wrong in the issues more often than not. Trump, if he is honestly seeking office rather than just mouthing off, may finally be doing some service. However, running for President actually is the one position that I consider a prestige run, rathern than actually service. If he actually wanted to work for the government, he should be running for House, Senate or any other State related position. For some running for President is merely a stage to garner attention.

3 - Actions within a war is sometimes hard to judge.

So, I don't really think that highly of McCain, however, I know he has tried to do what he thought was right at the time that he was younger. I can disagree with many of his positions, but the things that Trump has said is just deplorable, and he should have no room to talk.